Timing and the Times: A Time to Consider

Posted on October 2, 2025 by RC

I don’t understand the algorithms that manage social media. Somehow I have it in my head that most of the people who see what I post on twitter see it because somewhere along the line they decided to follow me. Which then leads me to believe that most of them are going to be at least roughly on the same page as me. I’m guessing that’s not how it works.

Because earlier this week I posted a link to an article in which I explained that Mormonism isn’t just a different denomination within Christianity but is a different religion. Later that day I tweeted that saying such is no more unloving or unchristian than saying a man isn’t a woman. Not a word excusing the attacks. Not a word attacking anyone. And then came the deluge.

Many of the responses came from Latter Day Saints wanting to know exactly which part of hell I crawled out from. No surprise there. I didn’t expect them to like the truth, even though just fifty years ago they agreed with it, affirming Mormonism was a different religion. Even though their founder, Joseph Smith held my same view as me, that their religion was different from ours. I also had a number of comments from professing Christians who see that whole “doctrine of the self-existent, uncreated God the Son” as insignificant minutia. What’s the big deal? That too is sad, but no surprise.

It was the third group that surprised me. These were professing Christians who actually agreed with what I had said. But they felt it unkind, un-Christlike, unloving in light of the brutal, wicked attack in Michigan. Couldn’t, they wondered, this have waited for another time? I get the heart behind this. But my answer is, not surprisingly, no, it can’t wait for another time.

The reason is simple enough. Today is the day of salvation (II Corinthians 6:2). As I write this, five Latter Day Saints Sunday lost their last opportunity to repent and believe the gospel. The problem, the evil of Mormonism isn’t merely that it’s false. No, the problem is it gives people false assurance of their salvation. Is this the week for scoring points in online theological debate with Mormons? No. Is it the time to warn them that they are not under His grace? Most assuredly. Which we will not do if we believe they are already under His grace.

It is the right time to answer the question because it is the time the question is being asked. Our Christian compassion on those suffering through the attack is a good thing. But it can tempt us to paper over differences that divide heaven from hell. Compassion is misdirected any time it keeps us from telling others about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is that Word, the uncreated God the Son, who commands of us to be always ready. It is that crafty creature, the Devil, who wants to silence the proclamation of the gospel. Christians are called to love those outside the kingdom enough to be hated by them for saying they are yet outside the kingdom. Let them, purveyors of that false religion of Mormonism, the theologically indifferent, and the too “gracious” for the kingdom condemn. We are to preach Christ.

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Sacred Marriage, Seasons II; Shutdown Theater; That 70s Kid

Posted on October 1, 2025 by RC

The Jesus Changes Everything has been deemed to be essential services and has therefore survived the shutdown. But now you have to listen in. Lisa and I on the seasons of life, the blessings of government shutdowns, pining for cinnamon Mini-Wheats, and seeing Jesus in our brothers. Check it out.

Today’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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The Fifth Empire: Glorious Triumph of the Rock

Posted on September 30, 2025 by RC

We, citizens of the American Empire, await yet another “shut down.” Is it but a mirage, or a harbinger? Would we not be wise if we, citizens of God’s kingdom, consider a right view of history itself? Let us look at Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzer’s dream of the great statue. There Daniel gave the king of Babylon roughly a thousand years of world history, before it happened. He foretold the fall of the Babylonian empire to the Medo-Persian empire. Next would come a nation that would conquer the known world, as Alexander the Great would do for Greece. He saw that Rome would follow on the heels of the Greek empire, and in turn that it would be divided.

We need to remember, as Daniel so powerfully made known, that our God controls all of history, that He reigns. That reign is certainly not restricted to “spiritual” matters. Nor is His rule restricted to Israel, or other “special” lands, as some see America or England. Instead, all that comes to pass, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the drop in the bitcoin today, to the tomatoes and peppers reaching toward the sun this afternoon in my back yard, all of this happens by God’s sovereign, efficacious decree. He brings it all to pass.

Daniel tells us why these four empires came and went when he gets to the fifth empire,

“As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze and the gold all together were broken in pieces, and became like chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not one trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth” (2:34-35).

Nations rise and fall for the same reason rivers rise and fall. For the same reason that death follows life. For the glory of the King of that last, and eternal kingdom.
We live in the midst of a fairy tale that has been rightly summarized, “Kill the dragon; get the girl.” History then is the study not merely of God’s providence, as if He were managing a machine. It is instead the story of the King. It begins “In the beginning” and it ends, “And they all lived happily ever after.” And in between, therein lies the tale. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.

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I Am… Studies on the Attributes of the Living God

Posted on September 29, 2025 by RC

Just a note that we continue our weekly Monday night Bible study tonight. We begin at 7:00, but local guests are invited to come for dinner too, at 6:15.

We air the study on Facebook Live (RC-Lisa Sproul). Within a day or two we post the video of the study right here for those who would like to watch on their own schedule.

We’d love to have you with us, in person if possible. We’d love for you to invite your friends. Our new study considers the attributes of God, unpacks just a hint of His ineffable glory. Tonight- God Knows

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Are Latter-Day Saints Christians, Just Another Denomination?

Posted on September 29, 2025 by RC

No. Unequivocally no. If words have meanings, no. That doesn’t mean they are worse than any other unbelievers. It doesn’t mean they don’t think they are. It doesn’t mean others don’t think they are. But they are not. Why not?

Because they deny essentials of the faith. Christians certainly have areas of agreement with Latter-Day Saints. Both affirm good things about Jesus. Both affirm a transcendent standard of right and wrong. But Christians and Latter-Day Saints disagree on what Christians rightly consider to be essentials.

None looms larger than our respective views of who Jesus is. While it is a terrible thing and utterly unbiblical for Latter-Day Saints to suggest Jesus and Satan are brothers, the deeper problem is they affirm that Jesus is a creature. They deny that He is self-existent. They affirm He had a beginning in time. They affirm the same of the Father. In fact, they know nothing of any God who is self-existent and eternal. Just creatures creating creatures.

They may counter that such is not a denial of deity. In fact, they affirm that Jesus and the Father are both “God” but that they both became “gods.” Which means, in their own categories, they worship creatures. Created beings cannot become “God” for to be God is to be uncreated. Not even the living God can create another God.

Christians across the ages confess that Jesus is “very God of very God, begotten not made” in the Nicene Creed. Non-Christians, whether Arians, Latter-Day Saints or The Watchtower Society, deny this. Thus, they are not Christian.

Time was when the Latter Day Saints themselves recognized this. In my own lifetime Latter Day Saints once claimed to be the one true church, and those outside were deemed not churches at all. It’s only over the course of the last fifty years that they changed course and began to claim they were just one more denomination among many. That too is an odd distinguishing mark of Latter-Day Saints, their propensity for shifting their own dogma with the times.

The Latter Day Saints likewise have a bounty of “infallible” revelations beyond the Bible, the Book of Mormon which started the cult, being one. The history of the Book of Mormon demonstrates, however, that it is chock full of errors and misrepresentations. That we continue to get revelational “updates” demonstrates the same.

None of this is a denial of the humanity of Latter Day Saints, that they bear God’s image. It is no denial that there are any number of issues on which we can make common cause. And it is certainly true that they are due protection and compassion in light of yesterday’s vicious attack in Michigan.

None of these truths, however, should deceive us into believing that Mormonism is anything other than an evil cult, leading people straight into hell. They are not Christians plus the Book of Mormon. Not Christians who are confused on some secondary issues. Not another denomination with some weird ideas. It is a false religion, worshipping a false god, proclaiming a false Jesus. Our duty is to expose it as such.

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Love In His Kingdom: Bringing the Outside In

Posted on September 26, 2025 by RC

The kingdom of God is at war. The promise from the beginning was that the seed of the woman, our King, would come and crush the head of the seed of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). Jesus’ first step out of the tomb at Gethsemane crushed that ancient and wily serpent’s head. From that time forward we, His bride, a help suitable for our Husband, have been engaged in a “mopping up” operation. The enemy has been defeated; but he doesn’t yet have the sense to give up.

That our Lord has secured the victory ought to encourage and empower us. That the serpent hasn’t yet given up ought in turn to put us on our guard. That the battles yet rage ought to inspire us to discern the times. Consider, for instance, those culture warriors who aspire to do the work of “pre-evangelism.”

Evangelism, of course, is the proclaiming of the good news of Jesus Christ. It is sowing seed, casting forth the Word of God about the victory of the Son of God. Pre-evangelism is an attempt to make ears more ready to hear, eyes more ready to see. To borrow from the parable of the sower, pre-evangelism is an attempt to till the ground. To make rocky soil more fertile, that the seed might take root and flourish.

Often pre-evangelism takes the form of “worldview” studies. Here we spend less energy declaring the truth about Jesus, and more time defending the truthfulness of truth. In a modern age we proclaim that Jesus is the truth, against the truth claims of other religions or naturalism. In a postmodern age we cannot argue for Christianity’s truthfulness until we establish that truth is even real. That it can be known, transcending that which is merely “true for me” or “true for you.”

Sometimes “pre-evangelism” takes the form of artistic expressions in sundry forms. Here we may, instead of affirming the glory of Jesus, seek to depict the vanity of a life lived under the sun. We may tell stories of redemption that, while not exactly telling the story of Jesus, are signposts toward His story. We might simply affirm the dignity of man, as we bear the image of God. Here again we are tilling the ground, preparing it for when the seed is cast. We pray our labors might be used to bring in the elect from the four corners, that His reign might be manifest.

These sundry forms of “pre-evangelism” have advantages and disadvantages. They certainly can be effective for some. They can, however, sometimes create exactly the wrong kind of soil. That is, when we simply assault the foolishness of the world and leave out the heart of the matter, we might be making more “converts” who will wilt under the pressure of the sun. Worse still, sometimes we may miss out on the real issue. We may be so focused on the “pre” that we miss the “evangelism.” It is far easier to talk around the gospel than it is to say to our family, our friends, and the broader world: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

What we often find, however, is that when our strategies work, even just a little, it’s usually because we have stumbled onto something God has already commanded. There is a form of “pre-evangelism” that God calls us all to do that will work and has worked far more effectively than our worldview wonkery or our high-concept cultural artifacts.

It is, in the end, the kingdom itself that brings in the lost. That is to say, we live faithful lives in covenant community, for we, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (1 Peter 2), are a light shining upon a hill. This light does indeed condemn the darkness (a victory we ought to celebrate, even as we likewise rejoice when the elect are brought in), but it is also a beacon.

If we were smart, we would know that the lost are rarely brought in by how smart we are. Instead, it is our love one for another that invites them in. This is what Jesus told the disciples (John 13:35) — that it is in and through our love for each other that all men will know that we are His disciples.

Our witness, then, in the end, isn’t about our clever arguments. Our witness shines through by our love for each other. This is both pre-evangelism and evangelism, for it softens the heart, even as it intrigues the mind as pre-evangelism. It is also the evidence of the redeeming power of Jesus Christ; it is the reality of the coming of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Once again, in the upside down economy of our Lord, the more we love one another within the kingdom, the more we bring in those who were outside the kingdom. We seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things are added to us.

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And Now, Live From Somewhere, Here’s The Fake News…

Posted on September 25, 2025 by RC

Are any of you in favor of fake news? You know, the news about COVID, or climate change? The news about autism and vaccines. Or the fake news about Tyler Robinson? Or would you all like to get rid of the fake news? Never let it rear its ugly head and lying lips again? I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone in favor of fake news. Except perhaps for various parody purveyors whose stock in trade is intentionally fake news.

So if virtually everyone is against fake news, why do we have so much fake news? There’s the rub, wouldn’t you say? Notice in my list in the above paragraph I said nothing about the effectiveness of vaccines. I wrote not a word about the accuracy of climate change theories, nothing about what causes autism. I expressed no view on whether Tyler Robinson is a conservative or a liberal.

I have my own thoughts on each of these issues and scores more. Some I’m more confident of than others. But this I know. There are plenty of people of reasonably good will who are on the opposite side of me on every one of them. Which is not an argument in favor of relativism. It is instead an argument in favor of all of us coming to grasp that it is always our bias to assume it’s the other guy with a bias. And we are all the other guy to someone.

Did you know that there are people who believe that climate change denial is as absurd as denying the earth is not flat? Do you not remember that the we were enjoined a few years ago to “Follow the science” while virtually all the scientists were lying to us? How are we supposed to know what is true when virtually no one is trustworthy?

Some argue that it is social media that has made us so distrustful. We, on opposite sides of the political spectrum, live in an echo chamber powered by social media AI and algorithms designed not to inform us but ensnare us. I recently re-watched The Social Dilemma, a Netflix documentary on these issues. There is something to be said for this danger and its debilitating effects.

What struck me, however, was that the movie makers’ solution was more regulation. Private businesses are messing with our minds for their own purposes. Therefore let’s give the government more power. What could go wrong? No one seemed to consider that maybe one reason no one believes anyone anymore is because no one tells the truth anymore. Might that have something to do with it?

Not only is the world overrun by lies, but no one seems to admit it when the lies are exposed. For pity’s sake, the government is still pushing COVID vaccines, and no one has even begun to face punishment for lying to the world. How is it that Americans have not demanded the resignation of everyone who told us President Biden was of sound mind?

The loss of Christian foundation in a culture swiftly leads to cultural decay and from there cultural implosion. Truth is slain in the streets. Maybe, just maybe we believers might have an impact here. Maybe being salt and light begins with telling the truth.

Posted in 10 Commandments, apologetics, Biblical Doctrines, covid-19, cyberspace, ethics, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, politics, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Charlie’s Memorial; Bondi’s Boo-Boos; Abe’s Babies & More

Posted on September 24, 2025 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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Judging We Are Judged: Putting Down the Gavel

Posted on September 23, 2025 by RC

When the culture veers wildly to the left we think the solution is to veer wildly to the right. The world has planted its flag on its intentionally obtuse misunderstanding of Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, lest you be judged” and taken the view that the only sin left is to call something sin. Much of the church has drunk deep of this heady wine as well.

That this perspective is wildly off, however, doesn’t mean our calling is to “Judge all the time, as much as you can, as vehemently as you can.” There are times we are to take up the prophetic mantle and speak against evil in the world. There are times as well when we are to gently correct a brother, and to receive such corrections. There are other times, however, when we are not to do so.

Paul writes the church at Rome about what he calls “doubtful things,” which are often those places where we are most apt to pronounce judgment. He judges us for doing so,

“Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:1-4).

This is not the only time Paul addresses this problem, doing so also in his first letter to the Corinthians. Which ought to tell us that we are prone to this problem. One problem, of course, in avoiding this problem, is that we don’t always know what the “doubtful things” are. We should push back against anyone arguing, “For one believes he may kill the unborn, but he who is weak would not do so.”

In our own day we have increasing numbers of professing Christians, desperate to curry favor with the world, negotiating the clear teaching of God’s Word on homosexuality, foolishly trying to drag it into the realm of doubtful things. Let it not be so.

There are, however, doubtful things, things we ought not to judge our brothers and sisters over. Romans 14 covers not just issues of food and drink, but days and holy days. How we sing praises to God is likely another “doubtful thing” over which we war within the church. If we would have a Reformation, however, we need to get past these petty squabbles. If we would stand together against an increasingly aggressive onslaught from the world, we need to stand together. If the world would know that we belong to Him, we need to learn to love one another (John 17).

Reformation comes when our focus and energy is poured into those things we must not find doubtful- that we are sinners, that Jesus died for us, that our Father loves us.

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I Am… Studies on the Attributes of the Living God

Posted on September 22, 2025 by RC

Just a note that we continue our weekly Monday night Bible study tonight. We begin at 7:00, but local guests are invited to come for dinner too, at 6:15.

We air the study on Facebook Live (RC-Lisa Sproul). Within a day or two we post the video of the study right here for those who would like to watch on their own schedule.

We’d love to have you with us, in person if possible. We’d love for you to invite your friends. Our new study considers the attributes of God, unpacks just a hint of His ineffable glory. Tonight- God is Free

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